In his research, Dr. Caulfield wants to compare levels of test anxiety among high school students in grades 10 and 12. His hypothesis is that seniors will have higher levels of test anxiety than sophomores will. His ___ definition of test anxiety for each person in his sample will be a self-reported test-anxiety level, marked in a questionnaire as "high," "moderate," or "low."

An operational definition is a procedure that assigns communicable meaning to a concept by specifying how the concept is applied within a specific set of circumstances. In another way, an operational definition is a precise description of what something is and how to get a value for something that we are trying to measure, that is, how to measure it. An operational definition has to be specific, concrete, measurable and useful to the people involved.

According to this conceptualization, we can state that when Dr. Caulfield explains how he will perform the procedure for comparing anxiety levels among high school students in grades 10 and 12, he is showing its operational definition.